Small Business Rate Relief

The Government's Small Business Rate Relief scheme is still open for applications.  The scheme gives up to 50% off rate bills for qualifying business properties and applications can be backdated to April 2007.

To qualify, the rateable value of your property must be below £15,000 (or £21,500 in London) and you must occupy just that one property (though you may still qualify if the rateable values of any other properties you occupy all have a rateable value below £2,200). 

The benefits of the scheme are:

• Rate relief on a sliding scale, with the greatest reduction in bills applying to properties with a rateable value below £5,000, where relief of 50% is available. 
• Relief reduces by 1% for every £100 of rateable value above this level.  So, for example, a qualifying property with a rateable value of £7,000 would get relief worth 30%. 
• All properties within the scheme including those with rateable values up to £15,000 (or £21,500 in London) pay the small business multiplier (which is 48.1p in 2009-10, compared to the standard multiplier of 48.5p).

Applications should be made to your local authority as soon as possible.

Full details of the scheme are available by clicking here.

Date added: Wednesday 23rd September 2009
Latest updated: Friday 7th June 2013